FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The invention lies in the semiconductor technology field. More specifically, the present invention relates to a sense amplifier configuration for a semiconductor memory device having a multiplicity of sense amplifier (sense-amp) transistors and drivers assigned thereto. Such sense amplifiers are also frequently referred to as read-write amplifiers.
The term "drivers" as used in this text is intended to mean a single transistor or else a multiplicity of individual transistors which are each provided for driving the sense-amp transistors.
In existing semiconductor memory devices, the sense-amp transistors are arranged alternately with drivers at the edge of a cell array. In other words, a group of sense-amp transistors is followed by a driver, which is in turn followed by a group of sense-amp transistors. Such an arrangement is shown in FIG. 3, which illustrates groups 1 of sense-amp transistors alternating with drivers 2. The cell array or cell field is situated on the right-hand side of FIG. 3 in the illustrated arrangement.
Such a configuration of sense-amp transistors 1 and drivers 2 opens up certain advantages for the layout of semiconductor memory devices, which is why there has been no departure from such an implementation heretofore. These advantages include, by way of example, a saving of area on account of the alternate implementation of sense amplifier groups and drivers.
It is disadvantageous, however, in the existing sense amplifier configuration shown in FIG. 3, that the individual sense-amp transistor groups 1 each have different diffusion regions and, moreover, the wiring paths between individual sense-amp transistors of the respective groups 1 and the associated driver 2 may be relatively long.